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The Celtic boss said: ‘Carlton Cole has to go into our salary structure. If not, it’s not possible. But the wage structure here is not a surprise to him. Every agent knows about our structure and knows where the limits are.

‘Right now, Carlton is watching us - and we are watching him - to see if it is a good match or not. We are very happy to have him here. He’s a lovely guy and you can see he’s a good football player as well.

‘He will at least be here this week and we will see what is going on after that. He’s been training with West Ham but he needs time to get up to top speed.

‘(If he wins a deal) we don’t know yet if it’s going to be a one or two or three-year contract. First of all we have to get to know each other. But it should be beyond the summer if he goes for it.

‘We have not set a deadline yet for a decision from either party but we won’t let it go on for a long time.’

Cole goes through the motions as he stretches with the Celtic team at Lennoxtown

Cole, a former England international, will hope to seal a long-term deal at the Scottish champions

Cole has been a free agent since his release by West Ham United in the summer. Here the striker is pictured celebrating a goal at Crystal Palace in the Premier League last season

Deila shot down suggestions that the move for Cole was directly related to the fact Aberdeen are currently five points ahead of Celtic at the top of the table after eight games.

‘No, it has nothing to do with that. We want to get better,’ he said.

‘We always look to improve the squad and the team and we have a department who have their eyes open all the time to see if there are players that can be interesting for us.

‘If we find other players that are interesting then that creates possibilities.

‘We’ve been looking for a target man for a long time now. We haven’t found the right one yet. Maybe Carlton can be that man.’

Meanwhile, Celtic are poised to open talks with Nir Bitton over securing a longer deal for the Israeli international midfielder.

Deila is keen to extend the 23-year-old’s current contract, which expires in the summer of 2017, as he believes Bitton can follow the likes of Fraser Forster and Virgil van Dijk in making a big-money move elsewhere.

Deila also admits he wants to nail down Nir Bitton (left) to a long term contract as the midfielder shares a discussion with team-mate Saidy Janko in training on Tuesday

‘Nir Bitton is a player we want to have here for a long time, so of course he is one that we are looking at keeping,’ said Deila. ‘But we are looking at everyone’s contract. We have control over that.

‘The process is not done in one day. It takes time and you have to do it in the right way.

‘But (chief executive) Peter Lawwell and I have a lot of experience in these situations. We know what to do and when to start it.

‘We have quite a few players here who can get better and who have the potential to get up to the levels of Forster or Van Dijk.

‘Nir certainly has the possibility to be a top European player and he is taking steps all the time. I think he can make it.’

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Ronny Deila admits Celtic may have found new target man in Carlton Cole but refuses to break wage structure to land free agent